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Read it and grin...

Suit brought against music labels for copy-protected CDs

Published 4:30 a.m. PDT Friday, June 14, 2002
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Two consumers have filed a class-action lawsuit against five major record companies, claiming that copy-protected CDs are defective and should not be available for sale.
The suit filed Wednesday in Superior Court seeks either to block the CDs release or require warning labels identifying them as inferior and hazardous to computers.

"If you use an Apple computer, you can't even get the disc out of the tray," said Nicholas Koluncich, an attorney who is representing his sister, Elizabeth Koluncich, in the case. "At the very least, the labels should make sure they sell a product that actually works."

Plaintiffs Matthew Dickey and Elizabeth Koluncich purchased copy-protected discs and either were unable to make backup copies of the music or had problems using the discs on their computers.

Named in the lawsuit are Universal Music Group, EMI Music Publishing, BMG Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment Inc. and Warner Music Group.

Copy-protected discs use encryption technology to deter digital copying. Some CDs can't be played on computers while others try to confuse the drives so they can't extract the disc's data. Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, said the music labels haven't done anything wrong by applying the new technology.

"Music creators have the right to protect their property from theft, just like owners of any other property," Sherman said. "Motion picture studios, and software and video game publishers have protected their works for years, and no one has even thought to claim that doing so was inappropriate, let alone unlawful."

None of the major labels have done any full-scale releases of the CDs in the United States, except for one soundtrack album by Universal. The discs still have compatibility problems, particularly with computers that don't run Microsoft's Windows software.

duy37

Copy protection doesn't work anyways you can still convert it to MP3. Though I also think that the studio can do whatever they want. I hardly use my computer to listen to my music CDs.

POWERBOMB

Someone should tell them to buy a cd player....

shaun3000

Copy-protected CDs aren't CDs as per Redbook standards. As such, the music companies make no indication anywhere on the packaging that the music discs are Compact Discs (CDs) nor do they use the CDDA label.

However, they don't make it clear that the music discs AREN'T CDs, either, which is wrong.

I do agree that the copy protection needs to be stopped.

C-Mart

Alot of people, myself included, use their computers to listen to music. I had a CD player but I didn't use it enough and sold it. Thus I always listen on my PC. Now that I have a laptop I listen to CDs at school too, but more likely I rip mp3s and then I don't need to carry the disks.

Anyway, music labels should properly test their products and then put warning labels if they happen to mess things up. like with the Mac issue. I knew Macs were inferior.

Jackskeleton

then again, you could just use a black magic marker....


I wonder how much dirt the music industry will dig on these guys. they better hope they havn't downloaded any "illegal" mp3's on there computer that they can not say they are just backing up or else the music industry will have some fuel to fan the fire.

Mazinger

Who says CDs are suppose to be able to play on computer cd-roms?

I don't mind copy-protection. The labels are just protecting their investment.

As for "we need to make a backup copy", I own over 500 CDs and I don't own a single backup copy. I don't see the need for me to have it.

tygloalex

I have lots of back-up copies. Buy the cd, copy it to my harddrive, reburn it and then play the back-up. I'm pretty sure it's completely legal as long as I have the original. This way, if I scratch the cd or something, I can just reburn it again. So I disagree with copy protection. As far as it crashing your computer, that's bull-ish.

mtucker

Well, there may not be a need for a "backup" copy, but it is indeed legal to have one. The Audio Home Recording Act which was passed in 1992 "exempts consumers from lawsuits for copyright violations when they record music for private, noncommercial use." Therefore, I should be able to take a CD I bought and rip the music tracks to mp3 files for my own use.

With these new copy-protected CD's we, as consumers, have had one of our rights taken away.

Thunderball

If that is truly the case, why is Macrovision legal? It prevents you from having a backup of the DVD.

(I dont' condone piracy I Just like playing Devil's Advocate)

AndyCapps

It's not a CD if it doesn't play in a CD-ROM. It's almost like saying a DVD is a CD since it's physically the same size. Since they don't meet CD standards, they need a different name and their own section(like cassettes and minidiscs).

benedict

Well for quite a long time it was the companies that manufacture CD drives and their agents. I believe that among those companies is Sony although I could be misinformed.... http://www.sonystyle.com/computing/prd.jsp?pid=7015

So far I dont have any back-ups or, indeed, any music files on my PC apart from the samples that were there when I bought it.

Having bought and paid for the music, however, I would like at some stage to "burn" compilations from the music CDs that I own - rather like I've made taped compilations in the past. I don't want someone else controlling the manner in which I deal with my possessions.

mtucker

The act as I read it only dealt with audio (but I may be wrong). As far as I can tell the movie industry can implement any type of copy-protection it sees fit (CSS).

Mazinger

I'm not saying that it's illegal to have a backup, but does the label have to provide a cd that can be copied?

mtucker

I think people are arguing that by producing a CD that cannot be copied, the record companies are infringing on a consumer's right to make a backup.

<small>I'm really not very knowledgable on these things however.</small>

fmian

I don't think it's so much a backup copy issue as it as an issue of the cd not actually conforming to standards and the public not being aware of this. Considering that the cd's don't play in computers I'm sure a lot of people would be swayed from buying it if they knew this.
Just imagine if RCE coded DVD's weren't labled that way. A lot of people would be unhappy.

As for making a backup copy of copy protected audio cd's, what's to stop someone from hooking up their hi-fi to the computer and recording the songs realtime?